Although her fellow Pekin High Dragons closed out their season with a loss against Bradley Bourbonnais in regionals this year, Diekhoff said she was glad to have her season continue by making it this far in this annual competition. She tried to get this far last year, but fell short of the goal at regionals.

This year, she made her way to State, having seen 9-of-15 shots swish through the hoop at regionals and 8 more do the same in sectional competition. But grouped with five other girls from across the state here, Diekhoff sank 3 of five shots from right wing, just 1 of five from the top of the key, and 2 of five fall from left wing for a total score of 6-for-15. She said she was glad it lasted a little longer, but Diekhoff’s season is now at an end.

“(I thought to myself) going into regionals, it would be pretty cool to advance to sectionals,” explained the junior who has hopes of majoring in the Sports Management field. Being a 1,000-point scorer has allowed her to garner attention from Bradley, Southern Illinois University, and Arkansas.

“I thought this would be pretty fun because I’ve never gotten that far before. After our team lost, and I moved on, I knew moving on in sectionals meant the competition was going to be a lot more challenging.”

Redbird Arena being a little larger venue than PCHS’ Hawkins Gym, Diekhoff said she employed a practice strategy from the beginning that she thought would help her at the larger college arena. She did not use the game floor at PCHS to shoot baskets, but rather, shot at one of the baskets near the bleachers. Although they were folded up when she practiced, she said doing so aided her mental impression of shooting at a basket that was in front of a crowd of seats, as seen at Redbird Arena.

This venue didn’t intimidate Diekhoff, she said. “It’s definitely a different environment knowing you’re at a big university. But I think the floor is about the same, even if it is longer. But we have a pretty big gym in Pekin.”

Diekhoff said PCHS head Coach Becky Fulkerson and her assistant coach, Katie Murphy, “were really excited and really supportive and this has been a pretty fun ride so far,” Diekhoff said. “(My coaches’ advice) was to not be short and flat with my shots.” Diekhoff said she went in also trying to remember another Fulkerson hint to use her legs at the line, too. But both coaches also told her “to have fun and not worry about it, and just enjoy the time while I’m here.”

“My folks are pretty happy I made it this far,” Diekhoff said about how dad Brett and mom Tiffany feel about their daughter making it to State for this event.

Having practiced for this beginning just before regionals, “I believe I practiced as much as I could for it,” Diekhoff said. “I just came up a little bit short.” With one more season of high school ball left, Diekhoff has one more chance to get back to State.

Advice for players coming up behind her from PCHS’ all-time scoring leader for those girls who want to take a crack at making to the State 3-Point championship: “Just enjoy basketball at the high school because that time goes by really fast.”

WASHINGTON – Washington Community High head football coach DarrellCrouch knows his team must hurdle over its competitors in the Mid-IlliniConference to win its championship outright.

Last year, Crouch’s team finished7-3, including a regular season loss to Morton and ending the season in afirst-round playoff shelling by Joliet Catholic.

Crouch and his team, obviously,look to better that record and make it back to the IHSA playoffs. But first,the Panthers need to get past the teams in their conference, and especiallypast teams Crouch sees as sitting atop the conference – Morton, Metamora, andDunlap.

“Our goal is to win the conference,”Crouch said. “The last four years, we’ve either been first or second. We wantto be first.”

Position-By-Position: Senior Isaac Fisher has the controls asquarterback this season, going into his third year as a starter. That gives Fisheranother opportunity to hand off to four guys who have spend as their strongpoint: Senior running back Kyle Zimmerman; Juniors Austin Harrell, Austin Reel,and Brent Brown.

Of those players, Crouch explained,“they will be our four frontrunners at that position.”

At wide receiver, Crouch is lookingfor contributions from senior Justin Robinson and sophomore Chris Friend.Robinson and Friend will be joined by a player who is new to the Panthersprogram this year, junior Anthony DiMito. DiMito transferred to WCHS fromSpring Valley Hall High School.

On the offensive line, seniors JoshHack and Mike Ernst; juniors West Pyle, Evan Cooper, Kyle Clark, and BradKuchenbecker; and sophomore Cole Stark will become responsible for holding backopposing oncoming defenses.

Sophomore Friend and junior runningback J. D. Eddy will serve as the kicking unit for the Panthers this season,with Fisher doing some kicking as well.

“We’re, right now, trying to workthings out to see who’s the most consistent,” Crouch said, explaining his team’spreparation for its kicking game.

On defense, holding the front linewill be Kuchenbecker, with juniors Chris Sexton and Kyle Clark rotatingfrequently at defensive tackle. Also on the line at defensive end is seniorJustin Robinson. Also part of the defensive line are junior Jake Moline, juniorJosh Fager, and senior Mason Wright.

Squib Kicks: Washington hosts Pekin Community High for itshomecoming game Sept. 23….Junior defensive back Dominic Carrol is sidelined forthe next 4-6 weeks with a strained knee…..WCHS has 12 seniors on its roster aswell as five players who play the game on both sides of the ball.

NORMAL – Following Pekin Community High’s game against Normal West High here Saturday night, Coach Dave Mott said his team played a team he described as being “long and athletic.”

While that may describe the members of the team, in some ways, it also described the game between the Dragons and the Wildcats itself – Normal West showed athleticism in their scoring, thus making the game a long one for the Dragons, who lost the non-conference contest, 49-36.

“(West’s) tall guys all could shoot threes,” Mott said.

In fact, Austin Stewart, Bradley Hallstein, Tyler Bell, Taylor Scheuermann each contributed at least one three each to the contest, with Stewart’s 21 points, including one trey leading the Wildcats on the night. Bell followed in double digits, with 15 points.

“We did not do a very good job of locating Stewart and Bell on the arc, even though we knew they could shoot it (from there) very well,” Mott said.

“But let’s face it: they were tall, and in spots, very athletic, and I think that wore us down,” Mott said.

An exchange of treys opened the contest with West’s Bell firing the first salvo to open the game at 6:49, followed by Caleb Huss’ 3-point reply 30 seconds later. Pekin’s defense occupied the paint enough to force West to employ outside shots, in a quarter that ended with the Wildcats owning a 9-6 lead going into the second quarter.

Aaron King’s two baskets at the beginning of the second quarter helped Pekin pull in front of West, 12-11 with 6:10 in the second quarter, but a three by Stewart at 3:43 until halftime pushed the Wildcats forward, 18-16, on their way to a 22-17 halftime lead.

Stewart scored three baskets for West (14-8) fairly quickly almost from the beginning of the third quarter, pushing West in front 29-21. A trey by Bell, followed by Taylor Scheuermann’s two free throws helped push West toward a 42-23 lead going into the fourth quarter.

Mott installed fresh troops in the fourth quarter for Pekin (6-15), to try giving younger players floor time while attempting to cut the deficit. Nathan Taphorn and Tom Lohmann made the most of the opportunity. Taphorn opened the last stanza with a basket and free throw, cutting West’s lead to 42-26 at 7:13, and Lohmann’s layup at 5:22 cut West’s lead to 45-28.

“In the first half, I thought our older players were competing hard,” Mott said. “(But) the start of the third quarter killed us. That was it. In the first three or four minutes of the third quarter, the game was over.

“I was just disappointed that we weren’t more competitive to start that third quarter,” Mott said.

Despite his team’s record to this point, Mott said he still has a goal of making sure the Dragons make it to – and through – their regional game, come tournament time.

West head coach Brian Cupples also saw the third quarter’s action as “being the key to the game.”

Cupples said his team “saw some things that (Pekin) was doing to us defensively, and our defense was really good for us the whole night, which gave us the lead, kept us in the lead, and then, helped extend it, and then we executed a little bit offensively in the third quarter.”

PCHS’ junior varsity began the night on a down note, losing to West, 36-28. The Dragons resume conference action against Morton Tuesday night.

NORMAL – When her team’s game against Normal West High School was over Tuesday night, Pekin Community High Girls’ Basketball Coach Becky Fulkerson tried looking at her team’s first loss of the season in a positive light.

“We got the loss out of the way,” she said, trying to put a brave face on her team’s 59-39 non-conference loss to the Wildcats.

Lady Dragons head coach Becky Fulkerson admitted after the contest that her team “came out flat” when the game began. But as the first half of the game continued, to the disappointment of the roughly 30 PCHS fans who came out for the game, stayed that way through the first half of play.

From the opening tip, Normal West (4-1) jumped out to a 7-0 lead on the strength of baskets by sophomore post player Lauren Berry and a bucket plus a free throw from junior guard Ashley Reeves.

PCHS junior guard Lauren Cash stopped the onslaught with a three-pointer of her own with 6:15 in the first quarter, cutting West’s lead, 7-3. But another bucket by Reeves, added to a trey by junior guard Anne Brown would give West a 20-10 lead after one quarter. Brown led West in double-figures with 10 points. Three other Wildcats players finished the night with nine points each.

West owned a 34-19 halftime lead, but Wildcat fouls sent four Lady Dragons players to the free throw line, gaining just three points, but allowing PCHS to get settled as the half approached, trailing 34-19.

Fulkerson said that after that start, her team “got outhustled the entire first half.”

“It was hard to kind of come back from that big deficit that we had built in the first half,” said Fulkerson.

“The tempo (of the game) was a little faster from the beginning than I think we were ready for,” Fulkerson continued.

Although PCHS managed to settle down at the start of the third quarter, West outscored them, 17-11, with the help of a trey by senior guard Katherine Riggins and free throws by junior guard Erin McGinnis, Berry, and Riggins, giving West a 51-30 lead going into the fourth quarter.

The fourth quarter was the only quarter PCHS managed to outscore West in – barely, — by a 9-8 count, on the strength of a trey at 3:12 by Cash, who led PCHS with 10 points.

“The second half, obviously, was a much-better half,” Fulkerson said, adding that her team tried changing defenses on the Wildcats in the second half.

NORMAL – Pekin Community High Volleyball Coach Yvonne Thompson is quick to say her Lady Dragons team has been taking the last couple of seasons “little by little.”

Last year, her squad racked up just six victories. This year, the Lady Dragons were 9-21, but managed to enter the IHSA Class 4A Playoffs as a fourth seed, facing top seed Quincy Senior High School.

But, it turned out the Lady Dragons were no match for the faster, bigger Lady Blue Devils, as Quincy Senior High defeated PCHS, 25-13 and 25-9 to advance to the championship of the Normal Community Regional. Both games took just 37 minutes to play.

QSHS (33-3) will face the winner of a contest between Normal’s two public high schools, Normal Community and Normal West, on Thursday.

“I can’t say this game summed up our whole season because we can play better (than we did tonight), but that’s just how things turned out,” Thompson said.

“Playing Pekin twice (during the regular season) and then coming out here, I think we held our focus and did what we had to do,” explained QSHS Volleyball Coach Barb Crist.

“Having played them twice, we knew what had to be done and that it needed to be done,” Thompson said. “We just came up short against a team that was taller and stronger than we were.”

In both contests, PCHS kept within one, 3-2, giving the impression each game would require players with staying power. But the play of QSHS junior middle hitter Maddy Barnes, particular when serving, gave QSHS an advantage in game two, racking up five points while her teammate, senior middle hitter MacKenzie Davis, helped QSHS rack up nine points as a result of her serves in game one.

Server Brogan Epkins had 7 assists for the Dragons on the night. Tori Ehrett led in digs with 6 for PCHS, and middle hitter Michaela Quilty added four kills. The Lady Dragons recorded no aces on blocks.

Hannah Kvitle had 20 assists on the night, leading all players. Davis had 11 digs and three aces. Barnes and sophomore Brittany Houghton each had three blocks. Houghton had six kills on the night, followed by Taylor Holtmeyer, Bethany Foster, and Barnes, who each had five.

Thompson admitted once QSHS started garnering points on serves, she tried using in-game substitutions of PCHS players to slow that defensively, but it did not work.

“(QSHS) just kept serving that ball on us,” Thompson said. “If we can’t pass, then, all of the sudden the point totals start moving up.”

Crist said she had noticed that the Lady Dragons had improved between their matches against QSHS as the season moved along. QSHS won the prior contests.

“I thought (PCHS) would have been tougher because we had played them early in the season and again at mid-season, and they had improved a whole bunch (between prior matches). And tonight, I was anticipating a lot more from them.”

Thompson said she has just two seniors, but there are six juniors who will come up in the ranks next season, giving their coach hope that what they learned this season will carry over to be considered added experience next year.